Honda Set to Resume China Car Output, Labour Unrest Lingers

Honda, which sold 17 percent of its cars in China last year, has idled its four local factories on and off since May 24, since a first strike at a wholly owned transmissions maker in the southern city of Foshan.

A second strike, at a maker of exhaust pipes and other parts, also in Foshan, ended late on Wednesday, and the plant’s Japanese parent said that with production back to normal, shipments to Honda’s suspended factories should return to normal on Friday.

Honda spokesman Yoshiyuki Kuroda said the carmaker hoped to announce a restart from Friday once a final decision was made. Honda had halted production at two assembly plants, which build the Accord, Fit, Odyssey and City, on Wednesday and Thursday.

But the settlement of the two earlier strikes was overshadowed by a third one, at a factory in Guangdong province run by unit Honda Lock, where about 85 percent of the 1,400 workers entered a second day of strike on Thursday.